


we're only echoes

by BlackBlood1872



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dissociation, Episode Related, Hurt/Comfort, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, MAG 159 The Last, Post-The Lonely, Stream of Consciousness, post-MAG 159, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26003311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBlood1872/pseuds/BlackBlood1872
Summary: It's dark, Martin notices. He tilts his face towards the sky and tries to pick out the stars. He sees satellites instead, maybe; blinking lights that move as they move, growing distant, growing closer. White, white, red. A lighthouse, a warning. There is something here. You are too close.Jon pulls him out of the Lonely. It takes a while to adjust.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	1. Dusk

**Author's Note:**

> Are we tired of post-159 fics yet? No? Good XD  
> Title _technically_ from [Half Light I](https://youtu.be/bLb_VGgij04) by Arcade Fire, but I changed the pronoun. Still counts, I think.

In the wake of the Lonely, everything feels strange. The world is both alien and familiar, loud and achingly quiet.

Martin loses moments.

They walk down the misty beach for innumerable minutes, hand in hand. Martin marvels at that, at the ease with which Jon touches him. When he found him, when he placed his hands on Martin's cheeks and stared him in the eye, Saw him and let himself be Seen in turn. How that moment fell into the next, Jon's arms around him, hands in his hair and on his back, soothing circles into his chilled flesh. How tightly Martin held him back, fingers twisted into the wool of his jumper.

He remembers speaking, vaguely, Jon's assurances that he knew the way out. Awareness wavered, and they were holding hands, walking along the cove. Walking down the streets of London.

It's dark, Martin notices. He tilts his face towards the sky and tries to pick out the stars. He sees satellites instead, maybe; blinking lights that move as they move, growing distant, growing closer. White, white, red. A lighthouse, a warning. There is something here. You are too close.

Jon's hands in Martin's pockets. Searching for something— for his key, right, he needs that to unlock the doors to the tenement, to his flat. How did they get here? Martin doesn't know how long they walked. His feet are numb, just like the rest of him, all except the spots Jon touched. The back of his head, his shoulder blades, clavicle to navel. His hand, still held tight in Jon's.

Martin blinks. He's laying down, staring at a small laundry basket, half full, sat by his door. When did they get to his room?

Where's Jon?

Oh. There, behind him, arm wrapped around his stomach and forehead pressed against his nape. Feet tangled with his ankles. The warmth of his body a searing brand against Martin's back, the warmth of a fire after hours in a winter storm. Flesh turned numb by cold; waking, pins and needles and blood vessels expanding, breaking. His skin will surely bruise, Martin thinks. Black and blue, purple and green. Yellow. Fading to normal, forgotten but for the time taken to heal. A distant memory, so far from now. Soon, as time ticks by even now. Every breath takes him further away.

The arm around him tightens, Jon curling closer. "Sleep," he whispers, and Martin does.


	2. Dawn

Martin wakes to find the world awash with colour. Golden sunlight spills into his room, paints a square on the wall. Cutout shadow shapes; the ceiling light, the wardrobe, Martin's shoulder and the arm curled around him.

He shifts, shuffles onto his back and Jon grumbles, half asleep and reluctant to wake. Martin stares at him, drinks in the sight of tangled hair, free from its bun and spilling over the pillow, strands caught in his mouth. The furrow between his brows as he clings to sleep. A soft frown, nothing like the strict edges Martin knew, then didn't. Nothing like the weary and worn smiles, weighed by exhaustion and regret, trembling against the gravity pulling their corners down.

Jon looks so soft like this, Martin thinks. So young, even with the grey in his hair, the scars, the lines etched deep into his skin.

He lifts his hand and brushes his knuckles along Jon's cheek, the high bones, sharp enough to cut under skin pulled too tight. His skin tingles with the contact, sparklers in his veins. Bursts of silver stars, pretty and mild unless you try to touch. A constellation of burns, a reminder. There is a reason for keeping your distance.

His skin warms, thaws; snow melt in spring. He has nothing to fear from this.

Jon stirs. His eyelashes flutter as he wakes, as he opens his eyes to a new day, a new world, always different in a million tiny ways. Always more to see, to learn, to memorize and tuck away. Saved for a rainy day.

Martin meets his gaze fearlessly, letting himself become lost in the depths of his irises, a million colours stitched together into a galaxy; brown and blue and green, an asteroid belt of red gravitating around a black hole, holding steady, push and pull and keep your place. Shades of orange under strands of umber, spider silk of twisting threads. Navy mists surrounding it all, keeping the universe contained, forever folding back on itself.

Sunlight warms those fathomless depths when Jon smiles, tired and small but sure, complete in its felicity. "Good morning," he says, warm breath on Martin's skin.

Yes, it is.

Martin smiles, and it pulls at old muscles left to weaken from disuse. He longs for the days when smiles were easy, when he wore them like a shield, protection against anyone who aimed to hurt him. When happiness drew a smile from his chest, unexpected and bright, imperfect and natural. The simplest act in the world. He hasn't had cause to smile for so long.

He wants to have a reason to, again. He thinks he's already found it.


End file.
